The More Things Change
by olivemonkey
Summary: With the Avengers, Steve has helped to save a world he's not sure he fits into. Then again, maybe it's enough if he just figures out how he fits into the team. Some Steve/Thor in Part 2.
1. Chapter 1

Things have changed.

That's not the game-ender it used to be. Not like it was before Nick Fury showed up to drag him back into life. But it's still … a thing. And he's not sure he'll ever get used to it.

He's not sleeping again, either. Not since right after the … after the almost-apocalypse. Slept like a baby, the first night after. To be fair, he supposes, that was probably at least partly thanks to the sizeable quantity of painkillers Tony Stark had passed him when no one else was looking. But whatever the cause, sleep has receded away along with those foundations so briefly built up beneath him.

He tries not to stare when he goes walking outside. There are men and women with hair in all colors of the rainbow, with earrings that they seem to have mistakenly placed in their noses and lips and eyebrows. There's so much skin that he doesn't know where to look. Anyplace you could have put a simple painted sign there's a flashing, glowing screen, and just walking through Times Square is enough to give him a headache even before they have the place fully fixed up. Men walk down the street holding other men's hands, and women kiss and hold each other on benches in Central Park – now _that_ is enough to make him blush and look quickly the other way, though he is always quick to intervene if someone else decides to start something over this kind of thing. The cars are too big and too loud, and so, for that matter, are a lot of the people.

Not all of them were brought up like he was, though, and sometimes they do stare at him. It's not hard to guess what they're seeing: hair parted too severely, shirt buttoned too high. He doesn't have to dress like this, doesn't have to go through life looking as if he'd stepped out of the screen of a historical drama. But then again, he feels he sort of does.

He reads Bradbury and Hemingway and Ellison and Steinbeck and Ginsberg. If he's going to catch up on what he's missed, he's damned well going to go in order. He's seen Tony Stark reading words that fly by on a shining screen no thicker than a dinner plate, but Steve hasn't got any interest in that sort of thing. He can use a computer, of course: it's just a glorified typewriter with a television screen added onto it that lets you send letters without paying for a stamp (and forty-two cents for one stamp? Good _lord_) but it's not about being a Luddite. He just prefers the feel of the book in his hands. And the sense that this heavy volume might have been handled in the used bookstore by the grand-daughter or great-nephew of a long-gone friend.

All he really has now are long-gone friends, and a tiny apartment in Brooklyn where his neighbors are polite enough to pretend they don't recognize him.

So he reads, and he walks, and he waits for the planet, the country, the team to need him again.

###

It would have been easier, he reflects, if there had just been a grave to go back to.

He has put it off for a while, but finally his sense of duty – and his longing, he has to be honest with himself on that count – tell him he can't wait any longer. These things don't have an indefinite shelf life. People don't have an indefinite shelf life.

He can almost see her in the gaunt face, the thinning hair and the rheumy eyes. "Sorry I'm late," he tells her, getting down on one knee. "But I did promise you a dance."

Anything to see that smile again. She smiles, yes, but it isn't _that_ smile. It's the smile of a confused old woman who is grasping at the unraveling threads of a memory she knows she was supposed to keep better track of. "You're not the usual fellow," she says.

"The usual fellow?" He isn't sure whether the way he keeps trying is for her benefit, or just some pathetic game of pretend on his part. Either way he can't stop himself from going through these particular motions. "How many boyfriends have you got, Peggy?"

"The young man who brings me my dinner." She blinks at him. Smiles uncertainly again.

"How about if I bring you _to_ dinner instead? And a movie. I'm a little tired, so I think the dancing's going to have to be off the table. Would you like that, Peggy – dinner and a show?"

She smiles again, a little girl's innocent, delighted smile. It's not Peggy's smile, not really. But it's enough for him right now.

She doesn't eat much – picks at the spaghetti noodles with her fingers, needs help bringing the water glass all the way up to her lips. But she talks a little about the life she's had, when he prompts her, when she's having an alert moment. He would have liked for her to have married that old schmoozer Stark, to have a dozen happy and annoyingly smart children, to have had a good life as well as a long one. Instead he hears about the military career that took its toll on her health and her love life. At least she had half of the life she had always wanted. He'll be lucky to have achieved that much someday.

The movie is a noisy, overly colorful affair without even a single cartoon or newsreel at the beginning. Peggy falls asleep halfway through, holding Steve's hand tightly with her thin fingers even as she dozes. Afterward, he takes her back to the nursing home, kisses her gently on the cheek, and walks out of her life for a second time.

###

He visits Stark Tower now and again, and Tony and Pepper are glad to show him the plans they've been working on. They're always working on plans, it seems – every time Steve is sure they're done tinkering with the tower, Tony comes up with another wild idea and Pepper reins it into reality. Interesting stuff, sure. A little lofty, a little extravagant, a little ahead of itself – well, a lot, really. This _is_ Tony Stark, after all.

Tony is mixing something in a cocktail shaker with a cheery foxtrot rhythm when Steve looks up from the current scheme. "Well?" he asks. "What do you think? Sorry, I forgot – did you want me to see if I can find you a pair of reading glasses?"

"What do I think?" Steve chooses to let the last comment slide. "For god's sake, Tony, you could fit the Washington Monument in the atrium of this thing!"

"I like that. That's good. We can work with that." Tony turns to Pepper. "Have I bought the Washington Monument yet? Pepper, buy the Washington Monument to put in the atrium. Actually, buy two. We'll put one on top with a cable antenna on it so that Mister Rogers here gets good reception when he wants to watch Matlock."

"That's _Captain_ Rogers, thanks," Steve growls instinctually. It's all too easy to rise to the bait when he knows half a dozen references have just gone flying over his head. "And I think the Washington Monument would look a little out of place on the island of Manhattan."

"Well, as long as Manhattan is the watchword – here you go, Cap. Cheers." Tony dispenses the contents of the cocktail shaker into a martini glass and passes it over. Steve holds it gingerly – he's pretty sure the last time he drank something out of a stemmed glass, it was a chocolate malt.

"Tony," says Pepper, from her perch in the window. She set her book down and raises her eyebrows. "Are you going to needle him all afternoon, or tell him?"

"Tell me what?"

"When am I supposed to practice my needlework if not when my favorite pincushion is on hand?" Tony asks, managing to sound genuinely hurt. Just as Steve sets the martini glass down with a too-loud clink, the other man segues smoothly into, "Got a postcard from Katniss and Kill Bill yesterday."

"What?" Steve feels the beginning of a headache beginning behind his eyes. He feels that way a lot when Tony is talking. An awful lot.

Pepper gives Tony a reproachful look as she translates. "Natasha and Clint say hello."

She hands Steve a postcard with a picture of a battered bridge on the front of it. He flips it over. The text on the back is empty blather about a honeymoon and souvenirs, and it's signed by two people Steve has never heard of. "I don't follow?"

"It's in code." Tony's at it again already with the cocktail shaker. "Those crazy kids want backup on some to-do they've gotten tangled up with in Europe. Corporate espionage, some guy calling himself the Shrike, which – if you ask me, though of course no one did – isn't the most intimidating code name, but, well, I guess complaining to you about how villains these days just aren't up to scratch I'd be preaching to the choir." He shrugs, decants, takes the first sip and grins approvingly at his own handiwork. "I can give you coordinates if you think you're up to coming out of retirement."

"Corporate espionage," Steve repeats. "That sounds right up your alley, Tony."

"Not really an alley kind of guy. Prefer avenues. A nice thoroughfare, maybe." Tony meets his eyes over the rim of the glass. "Anyway it doesn't sound like a big production, and I'd just as soon not pack the whole team up and leave this side of the planet unprotected for what's really just a three man job."

"So why aren't you the third man? They sent the tip to you, didn't they?"

Tony and Pepper share a glance, almost imperceptible. "Coming when called? Not really my style," he says. He's thrown the word out there – _style_ – for Steve to go after, but Steve's not interested in that particular piece of bait just now.

"Because I need this," he says flatly. The frank, sympathetic look Pepper shoots him is enough to tell him he's hit the nail on the head.

Tony sets the glass down. "Tell me it's not true and I'll be on the next flight to Bern myself. Scratch that – I'll _be_ the next flight to Bern. I think the Mark Eight can complete a trans-Atlantic flight without recharging."

"You _think _it can?" Pepper repeats dryly, but she turns to look at Steve again.

He can't lie under the weight of both of their stares. He's not altogether very good at lying under any circumstances, when it comes right down to it. He finishes the drink Tony has made him and says, "You said something about coordinates?"

"Yeah, I ordered you a plane ticket five minutes ago." Tony flops down on the sofa and puts his feet up. He doesn't spill a drop of his drink. "Happy's waiting for you in the car downstairs. Say hi to the kids when you see 'em, will you?"

"Sure," says Steve, because he doesn't know what else to say, and stands up to leave.

"Steve," Pepper calls after him, and he pauses. "There's a place for you here. In the tower. If you want it. Whenever you want it."

"Yup," says Tony, and lets Pepper take the Manhattan out of his hand. "Bunk beds in Banner's room. He wasn't thrilled when I had them installed, but he's not paying rent, so he'll just have to cope."

"Tell the other two the same," Pepper goes on, ignoring Tony completely. "We can operate without it having to be under the S.H.I.E.L.D umbrella. And there's no reason to get caught off-guard again the next time the world tries to end when we're still busy living in it. Getting the gang back together …"

"Not the _whole_ gang," Steve says automatically, and immediately finds something interesting in the bottom of his empty glass. "I mean, there's nothing to say Natasha and Clint are even going to be interested."

"Go catch us a spy, Captain Subtlety," says Tony.

"And come back in one piece!" adds Pepper. "All three of you."

"Thanks," says Steve, and means it.

###

If Clint and Natasha were expecting Tony instead of Steve, they are polite enough not to share this with Steve when he appears. Natasha quickly explains that what Tony described as corporate espionage is a little more along the lines of corporate warfare. "The Roxxon corporation has pirated tech and information from companies all over the world – including Stark Industries – and they're cobbling it together into … something."

"Something unpleasant," adds Clint. "Tash has been inside; not all the way in, but far enough to something ugly is going on."

Natasha's lip curls. "Justin Hammer is involved somewhere up the line, so I'd say yeah, something ugly is going on."

"Touché." Clint unrolls a schematic and points to various places. "Prototype lab here. Main server is here, and there are two backups for the design files; here, and here." Clint glances up. "And by server I don't mean a waitress. It's sort of a computer, with, ah, pictures on it—"

"I get the idea," Steve interrupts. "It's got to go. But why? What's so ugly and so dangerous that it needs us to go crashing into somebody else's business?"

Without a word, Clint slides a file folder over to him. Inside there are photographs. They don't make much sense at first to Steve – garbage trucks taking a load to the dump? But then he notices what's sticking out from one of the tarps being unloaded. A limb – human, or something like it. Sickly green, too big, and not – well, not right. Malformed: covered in bulging, misshapen veins, the too-narrow wrist clearly broken under the weight of the giant, hammy hand. "Bruce—" he begins, and trails off. "I saw him in Manhattan."

"Not Bruce," says Natasha. Steve notices the thin sheen of sweat on her upper lip, the schooled coolness of her expression. Of course – it would have to be something like this. He kicks himself for not noticing before; it's too easy to think of Natasha as unflappable when there is really only one thing – this one thing – that, well, flaps her. "We think they're trying to make more like him. People have tried that before."

"And they've been stopped before. History books always gotta have a stutter." Clint taps his finger on the tabletop again. "Anyway. Lab. Server. Backup. Backup."

Natasha nods. "It looks like the lab is the heaviest-guarded. I haven't been inside it, but there are usually five guys by the elevator on the floor above, and you can count on security cameras, defensive mechanisms, the whole deal. We hit that as a team, and then split up to hit the other three individually." She leans back in her chair and folds her arms across her chest. "And then out."

"No," says Steve.

Clint frowns at him, his expression a near-perfect mirror of Natasha's. "No offense, captain, but I wasn't really planning on a suicide mission."

"I'm not saying no to getting out, Clint, I'm saying no to the whole plan. It's too risky."

Clint throws his hands up in the air. "Then we wait and call in the whole gang! It needs to get done, and if you're not going to—"

"It's not about firepower!" Steve cuts in. "Take out the labs and the backups, great – but can you guarantee that no one else is going to stuff a vial of serum in a purse or a pocket? Or a computer … thing? Look, once the idea gets out of the building, there's no putting it back in." He pulls the schematic toward him, turns it around to face the other two. "Lock down the other exits and funnel them all out through this main one. Clint's posted outside to search anyone not in a security guard uniform and make sure any baggage gets left behind. Natasha lays down some cover while I go through and evacuate the building and look for any surviving test subjects."

"Let me get this straight," Clint says. "I'm outside doing pat-downs while you're in there using a woman as your shield?"

The question catches Steve off guard. He pulls back in his chair a little, takes his hand off the schemata. "Well – yes. Her and my actual shield."

Clint and Natasha trade a glance. The room suddenly warms about ten degrees, and Natasha nods. "Okay. Then what?"

"Was that a test?" Steve asks automatically, which is a stupid thing to ask, because of course it's a test, his whole life has been one test after another. He takes a deep breath because there's no sense in getting angry; they've worked with him exactly once and they didn't vote for him to waltz in here and commandeer their operation.

"No offense, captain," says Clint. "You're sort of old-fashioned. Just making sure that's an adjective and not a complete character summary."

"He gets it, Clint," says Natasha, and the archer sprawls back in his original easy pose. "So. Everybody out. Then what?"

Steve exhales. "Then? We blow the place sky-high."

###

The guards are well-paid corporate goons and Natasha methodically takes them apart. The poor deluded bastards were never trained to take on anything like the Black Widow. Clint checks in from upstairs and everything is on task. And so Steve thinks when he kicks in the door to the lab area that maybe, just maybe, they'll pull this whole thing off without a hitch. Well, he thinks to himself, maybe he hasn't got any business thinking of anybody else as a poor deluded bastard.

The first thing that hits him is the stench. It's sour and stale, a little rusty – old blood and bodies. Natasha shoves past him to check that the room is clear with SWAT-team precision, and then falls back by the door. "Hall's clear," she says, positioning herself just inside the frame. "You need a hand?"

She meets Steve's eyes briefly before focusing on the hall again, and he gets that this is a request, not an offer. "I'll clean house," he says. "You watch out for unexpected guests."

She nods briskly without looking back at him, and he moves into the room.

The place is like walking through the looking glass and into a grotesque facsimile of the lab where Steve became Captain America – where everything that would ever be special about him went from that bottle and into his veins. There are rows and rows of computer consoles, wires and tubes crisscross the ceiling and embed themselves in the floor. There are tanks buried in the dark recesses along the walls. Steve breathes shallowly through his mouth and walks toward them, and tries to look at them as little as possible. Most are empty, and that's a blessing. The last two, however …

"What are you going to do with them?" Natasha asks, from the doorway. She's not looking at him. He hadn't realized she'd looked at this particular part of the room, but of course she must have during her initial sweep. "Captain?"

"I'm going to let them out," he says. "You up for this?"

"I do the job, sir," she says, and funny little thing, he won't even notice till much later, replaying the mission in his head, that she's called him 'sir'. Right now, there is only these last two tanks, and their contents. Right now, he draws his arm back until he feels the strain in his shoulder joint, and then he lets his shield fly.

The tanks burst open – one, two – and Steve snatches his shield out of the air as the limp bodies slither free.

The first one he checks doesn't even have a pulse. He double-checks anyway, rips off his gloves and slides his fingers under the misshapen jawline. He finds gills, odd lumps of cartilage – no heartbeat, none at all. "Captain," says Natasha, warningly – but warning him of what? – and he moves to the second.

It's a woman, or it was. Her limbs are too long and too thin, almost frog-like, and her skin is a mottled purplish-green. Her head has been shaved; her nose is too small for her face, and her mouth too big. There are holes in her chest, great gaping through which he can see soft quivering lungs. Her eyes focus in on Steve's and she leans forward to wheeze a few words that he can't make out. Her fingers twist into his sleeve as he shakes his head in incomprehension.

"Captain," says Natasha more loudly. "Are you going to—"

"Natasha, give me a min-!"

The creature lunges up, grabs Steve by the neck. His air supply is suddenly, and very inconveniently, reduced. "Captain!" Natasha shouts for the fourth time, but Steve waves her back, because with his face too close to the dripping, rancid face of the creature, he can make out what she's rasping.

"_Kill me_. _Please-_"

The request isn't made lightly, and Steve doesn't take it lightly. There's room in his personal pantheon for mercy, and while he may not be on his knees asking for forgiveness for this one, he can't say the same about forgetfulness. He wedges his gun under her chin and fires a single bullet. It's enough. Her face slackens, and she's still staring at him as the life drains out of her. So he takes her too-big hand in both of his, and holds it tightly, until her chest rattles and she's gone.

"Captain," says Natasha, and she's right behind him now. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," says Steve, and gets to his feet without staggering. "Yeah. Help me set the charges."

###

They find Clint outside, sporting a purpling bruise over one eye but otherwise unharmed. "Failed attempt at cognitive readjustment," he says nonchalantly, and one corner of Natasha's mouth quirks up. There's a small army of unconscious guards and scientist stacked up around him, like dolls discarded by a bored child. A bored child that likes to play with arrows that release nets and snares. "How'd you guys come off?"

"We're good to go," Steve replies, and Clint gives him an evaluating glance. "Did you find anything?"

In answer, Clint tosses three vials down on the ground in front of him. They shatter on the pavement. "Good," says Steve, "good," and he means it, mostly. The shards crunch under his boots as Natasha and Clint fall in behind him, one on either side, and the building blows from underground, a flash of light and rumble of something like thunder and a dissonantly gentle gust of heat against the back of his head. He turns over his shoulder to look at it, but catches Natasha's eye instead.

"I shouldn't have let you do it," she says. "That's what I'm trained for. Not you."

"I'm a soldier, Nat," he says. "I might not like to do it, but I was trained to kill."

"Yes," she says. "But not to murder. I was."

He doesn't have an easy answer to that, probably because it's the truth. They walk in silence for another minute. Natasha examines her scraped knuckles, Clint probes his bruised forehead and asks if they think purple is his color. Steve says, so suddenly it surprises even himself, "Tony's offered us all a place to stay. In Stark Tower. If you want it."

Clint's head cants to one side. "And you're going to take him up on it."

"I – think so. You don't have to, of course, but Pepper asked me to offer-"

"We'll come," Natasha says, and Steve releases the breath he didn't know he was holding.


	2. Chapter 2

There are rooms for all of them. There's a gym, and a common room, and a kitchen – it is the grown-up equivalent of the world's best fraternity house. Tony is showing the others how to make him (or, theoretically, themselves) a cappuccino from the machine built into the kitchen wall when Steve takes Pepper aside.

"Miss Potts—"

"Pepper. It's Pepper, Steve." She smiles encouragingly, and he ducks his head.

"Pepper – I'm, well, I'm sort of between jobs right now, but I want you to know—"

"Oh my god," she said. "Steve. Are you trying to offer to pay _rent_?"

"Well, if I could just arrange to—"

"Tony!" she calls, and takes Steve by the arm. "Steve wants to learn how to use the deep-fryer, but he's too shy to ask you himself."

"Is this a punishment?" he mutters to her, as she maneuvers him forward, and her smile is dazzling.

"You better believe it, captain."

Steve escapes back to the room set aside for him when he can (after Tony deems that a sufficient number of items – nearly all of them food – have been fried). The room still smells like fresh paint, and heaven only know how or where, but Pepper's found a radio that looks almost exactly like the one that had sat on the sofa table in the apartment where Steve had grown up. There's a bookshelf built into one wall, stocked with vintage pulp science fiction novels; and a Brooklyn Dodgers pennant pinned to the wall.

It looks a lot like the room in Brooklyn that he's just moved out of, actually.

He stands in the doorway for a moment and marvels at the fact that some dopey kid from Brooklyn has moved all the way up to Midtown Manhattan. Then he marvels that he's marveling at where he lives instead of _when_.

He takes the first book down from the bookshelf and sits down on the bed.

###

"Do you need help with that?" Bruce asks.

He hasn't really turned to look at Steve, but Steve can tell he's been watching. Steve sighs, and sets both the beer and the bottle opener on the countertop. "A simple lever," he says. "Just a regular bottle opener. That's all I need." He steps aside and lets Bruce pick the damned contraption up. "But this thing …"

"Well, it also opens jars and cans." Bruce settles the opener over the bottle in a configuration Steve hasn't yet attempted. "And wine bottles, I think. Anyway, you usually figure it out. Eventually. Don't worry about it."

The cap comes off, and Bruce sets the opener back on the counter. Steve shakes his head and smiles, ruefully. "Remember when _I_ was the one who was so concerned about tiptoeing around _you_?"

"Who's tiptoeing?" Bruce asks. He takes a sip out of the open beer, grins insouciantly, and leaves Steve with the opener and discarded cap.

Steve is surprised enough to laugh. He takes another beer out of the fridge, tries to arrange it in the bottle opener the same way Bruce did, and is rewarded with a satisfying pop.

He bumps into Tony in the kitchen doorway. "'Scuse me," Tony says. "Pepper drank the last Stella in our fridge, so I'm raiding yours. And then possibly designing a retina scan lock for the fridge." He's wearing one of his standard-issue ratty t-shirts over striped pajama pants; he gives Steve's khakis and buttoned shirt a questioning glance. "You going somewhere?"

"Yeah. The common room."

"Well, godspeed, soldier," Tony says, and tosses off what might generously be called a salute. Steve walks away to the sounds of muffled cursing and the fridge rattling.

He's fighting with television remote when Tony wanders into the common room and flops down next to him on the couch. "What'cha doing?"

"Trying to watch the television." _And currently failing at it._

"Well, why are you messing with that?" Tony takes the remote out of his hands, flips it over his shoulder. "Who bothers with a remote? Just tell Jarvis to play what you want."

"Isn't Pepper waiting for you upstairs?" Steve tries, but Tony waves him off.

"She's a big girl, she probably won't wander off and get lost while I'm gone. And if she does, she can buy some more Stella while she's out. What are we watching?"

Steve manages to hold Tony's eye contact as he speaks. He does not quite manage not to turn beet red. "Jarvis. Play Star Wars. The first one."

"Of course, sir. The first one filmed, or the first in the chronology?"

"Filmed, please," says Steve, and sits down in the corner of the couch.

"Yeah, Jarvis, don't insult the guy." Tony stretches out and puts his feet up on the coffee table. "Although speaking of insulting. Are you _embarrassed_ to be caught watching Star Wars?"

"Clint said I'd like it," Steve confesses, and Tony clucks disapprovingly.

"Although usually taking Barton's advice is a pretty laughable prospect, I think the much more valid thing to make fun of you for in this situation is that you didn't see Star Wars until you're, like, a hundred years old. Inexcusable."

Steve doesn't have a quick answer for that, so he holds out the bowl of popcorn he'd made, and Tony helps himself to a fistful. They sit in silence for a few minutes while words scroll across the screen. A giant spaceship is looming across the screen when Tony says, abruptly, "You know, meeting you for the first time was one of my life's great disappointments."

"Shall I pause the film, sir?" asks Jarvis.

Steve blinks, swallows a mouthful of popcorn, doesn't look at Tony. "Sorry?" he manages.

"No, my fault, that came out wrong. Accurate, but also wrong." Tony leans forward. "I mean – my dad was always telling me stories about Captain America. Captain America rescued 400 prisoners of war from a Hydra camp; Captain America flew the Red Skull's ship into the water to save New York. So in my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined meeting Captain America. And then getting into a shouting match with him within five minutes."

"I will resume the film upon your request, sir."

Steve isn't sure if Tony is making or requesting an apology, so he doesn't say anything at all. Tony continues, "And, boy, what an argument it was. Here's this guy my dad wouldn't shut up about, and it turns out that Captain America is just some angry, sanctimonious jackass on 1940's off-brand steroids." He falls silent, and shoots Steve a small, almost apologetic smile. Steve just stares at him. "Which … wasn't it at all. Captain America didn't peel himself off the page of one of my comic books to help kick Loki's ass. I was ready for you to be a superhero and it turned out you were just … some guy, like me."

Steve clears his throat. "Not _too_ much like you, I hope."

"I don't know. Ever gotten a DUI? No, of course not. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is … " Tony puts out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Steve Rogers."

Steve shakes Tony's hand.

###

These people call themselves the Serpent Society, but Tony's epithet of "scaly sons of bitches who don't understand the concept of a weekend" seems much more appropriate to Steve. Their plan – such as it is – seems to be taking hostages and robbing a bank in broad daylight. This is the third such place they've hit, and while it's not quite aliens-in-Central-Park serious, the Avengers aren't too proud to handle it. Well. Some of the Avengers, anyhow: Clint and Steve (or, as Clint cheerfully puts it, "the B-squad") set out to take care of it while Tony and Bruce remain intent on whatever mad science they're up to today and Natasha heads off to meet with Nick Fury about some Russian spy-assassin-who-knows-what that's surfaced in South America.

There's three of the goons, they're using kids as shields, and Steve is immediately white-hot angry at the sight of them. A shield is a decent thing, noble almost, it's the weapon he chose for a reason, and these guys are making it something ugly. From the top of the building across the street, they watch the Society members making their way toward their demanded getaway car, and he gives Clint a series of terse, explicit instructions that put a cold, hard smile on the archer's face.

The first arrow strikes the front tire of the van and the air hisses angrily free. A beautiful, hard-faced woman is the first out of the bus, holding a ten-year-old boy in front of her with one arm around his neck.

The second arrow breaks apart in midair. Steve can't follow the path of the tiny dart inside, but the boy stiffens, then suddenly slumps against his captor. She shouts something Steve can't hear, drops the sedated child, and a pair of long, diamond-sharp blades appear in each of her hands. "That's our cue," says Steve.

"After you, Cap."

The third arrow screams out as they drop from the rooftop to the street below. It punches through the van's rear window and orange smoke boils out of the hole it's made. Hostages and Serpents alike pour out of the van: a man with a pair of cybernetic arms and another woman, this one looking like she could probably give the Hulk a run for his money in a tug-of-war contest. Their coughing is already abating as they take positions on either side of the first woman.

"Mind if I cut in?" Steve asks, and Clint gestures graciously. The vibranium shield rebounds off the open passenger side door and into the back of the muscular woman's head. Another flurry of arrows sails past the first volley of diamond-shaped daggers launched by the Serpent woman. Clint chortles with glee when one of his arrows explodes a net around the already-stunned giantess, even as a dagger takes a slight notch out of his calf – he doesn't seem to take much heed. He's a step to Steve's right and just behind as Steve catches his shield and uses it to uppercut the knife-thrower. Another Steve, in another lifetime, might have hesitated before just about braining a woman. This Steve, here and now, however, has had just about enough of this kind of sh—this kind of stuff.

She spits blood, staggers backward, grabs for another hostage, but Clint has already skipped forward and slung the unconscious child over one shoulder and pushed the other two behind him. He backs up now with his bow steady, firing arrows over Steve's shoulder. The woman who's still mobile launches herself behind a nearby parked car to dodge, but the man throws himself into the van. He leaves both comrades where they are – the van revs, and Steve looks at Clint. "That's the last of hostages – all clear."

"Music to my ears," Clint replies. "And you might want to cover yours."

He's already loosing the arrow as he speaks and Steve dives into a crouch with his body and the shield between the whimpering kids and the sudden red-hot explosion that rocks the street. Paper currency flutters through the air like confused butterflies. "Clint!" says Steve, and like a scolded schoolboy Clint protests, "I only blew up the back of the van! He'll be fine. Except probably concussed. And maybe on fire, if we don't drag him out of there."

"So do that?" Steve suggests. Clint shoots him an aggrieved look, and trots off. Steve straightens up from his protective stance turns to look for the EMTs – Tony swears the effects of the gas are short-lived and non-toxic, but better safe than sorry. He raises his arm to flag them down, and bites into his own tongue as electrical voltages surges through him like the Mississippi river through a drainage ditch.

The next thing he knows, he's on his face on the pavement, and there's a metallic rope twisted around his arm that's still faintly arcing with electrical energy. He's fairly sure that hasn't always been there – nor has the lingering burnt smell that hangs heavy in the air. Clint's shout, a million miles away, is cut off suddenly by a short, dull thwack and a grunt; but one of the kids is still squalling. Steve drags himself up onto one knee, finds his shield with his good hand, and rolls it toward the three kids. The oldest one, a girl of maybe twelve with a tear-stained face, grabs hold of it and pulls it over all three of them. The cries of the other one who was still conscious echo from underneath, but at least the thing won't conduct electricity.

"Not a very strategic move for a captain." The speaker is standing over Steve now. He's nobody's vision of a supervillain, a balding middle-aged man holding a pair of metallic coils like a sci-fi novel's vision of a lion tamer. One of them is what's wrapped around Steve's arm – Steve yanks, trying to pull the man off balance. And he does move forward, yes, with the pull – but only to clip Steve in the face with the steel toes of his boot. Steve flips over and tastes copper as the metal whip regains its charge and lights him up anew. "What do you know?" the man says, almost pleasantly, as the seizing subsides. "Lightning _does_ strike twice."

With his face on the asphalt, Steve feels the low, distant rumble as if it is coming up out of the sewers beneath him. It's far away. Getting closer – he thinks. Hopes. He huffs a laugh that sprays blood. "Yeah. But as it turns out, thunder only strikes once."

It's not his best banter – he's pretty sure that thunder doesn't actually, technically, strike at all. But he only gets a moment to enjoy the baffled look on the Serpent's face before the hammer screams across the alley and sends him flying. He doesn't get back up, but Steve does.

Before he can look around, a voice says from behind him, "Back once more to carry the day. I wonder, how is it that you manage when I'm not around?"

Steve grins in spite of himself as he turns. "Good to see you too, Thor." And it is – a distraction, at least, from his throbbing arms. He bends down, picks up the hammer where it's fallen at his feet, and holds it out to Thor. "Where's Clint – have you seen him?"

Thor takes a moment to accept the hammer, and his mouth works soundlessly before he says hoarsely, "I do not know. I saw your struggle and—"

Steve pushes past him and vaults over the parked car behind which the female Serpent had disappeared. He barely clears the far side and drops to both knees with the impact, but Clint is there with an arrow against the Serpent's windpipe, giving Steve a put-upon look. "Be with you in a minute, captain." The woman's feet kick feebly once, twice, before her eyes roll up in her head and her knees give out. Clint lets her drop to the ground and then pokes her with one toe. "That cyborg guy – Bushmaster, he's called – got away when my lady friend here got me with a suckerpunch." He grunts as he pulls a small diamond-shaped blade out from between his ribs and throws it on the ground.

"Yeah," says Steve, "times change, but that is definitely _not_ what we meant by the word 'suckerpunch' in 1945."

"Not a big deal," says Clint, and staggers. "Lost the kidney on that side three years ago in Sudan, so nothin' there worth stabbing."

"You're an idiot," Steve informs him, and catches him as he pitches forward.

Thor walks up as Steve is easing Clint's arm around his shoulders – the Asgardian has tossed the male Serpent over one shoulder and the netted woman over the other. He looks around for a moment to assess the situation, then stoops down and adds Clint's sparring partner to the load as if she's no more than a sack of heavily armed potatoes. "Are you able to assist Barton, Captain?" he asks, with a sudden distance that hits Steve like another sting of the Serpent's electrified lash.

"Yeah," he says, "yeah, let's get him out of here."

The police are coming up the street cautiously now, investigating the smoking wreckage of the getaway van, pulling the kids out from under Steve's shield. A young cop with her yellow hair cut boy-short shyly brings the shield back to him; he makes sure Clint has his legs under him before reaching out to take it back with one hand. "Never seen anything like it," she says, a little breathlessly.

"Yeah …" Steve looks at the burning van, the unconscious kid being carried off to an ambulance, Clint's blood dripping along the line of Steve's arm around his waist. "Sorry about the mess," he says quietly, and moves off.

"N-no, I meant—" stammers the cop, but Steve's already past.

Thor stops in front of her, drops his unconscious baggage to the ground. "I for one understand what it is that you meant," he says wryly. "Now. What do you have in the way of manacles?"

###

Bruce diagnoses Clint as having a "clinical death wish" and sentences him to two weeks' bed rest. The real sentence, however, is on anyone who takes a turn bringing him food or trying to entertain him – at least until Bruce offers to let the Hulk take a turn on nurse duty. "I wonder if the big guy could still set an IV correctly?" he muses. Clint cusses him out and sullenly agrees to eat the damn Jell-O already.

Steve gets a little first aid himself, for the second-degree burns on his arms and a couple of stitches that he'll probably wind up picking out within a day. "I heal fast," he protests.

"Not _that_ fast." Bruce peers at him over the tops of his glasses as he tips pills into an orange plastic bottle and hands them over to Steve. "Antibiotics – one pill twice a day, and finish them all. And don't make me angry by leaving the infirmary to go work out right off the bat."

"I like you better when you're angry," Steve says. "That way I know what I'm getting."

Bruce shake his head, takes off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt sleeve. "Prove to me that you were listening to what I was just saying or you're going to wind up restrained in the bed next to Mr. Barton."

"I won't go straight to work out," Steve parrots, and isn't even lying, because the kitchen is on the way to the workout room and his stomach currently feels like it's trying to climb up his spine anyway. Bruce releases him on the currency of his good word and Steve goes to find out how difficult making a sandwich can be in the 21st century.

Thor is already in there, laying out a spread of groceries worthy of an Asgardian feast. He gives a plastic tray of sushi a disapproving sniff, and Steve says, "It's better than it looks. And smells."

Thor turns, hesitates, then holds out the tray. "I leave it to you, then. Men may walk where gods fear to tread. Or where we know better."

Steve's stomach rumbles, and he quickly concludes that sushi requires less preparation than sandwiches. He digs in while Thor continues to rifle through the cupboards. Finally the Asgardian crows in victory, and draws out a can of espresso grounds – but his face soon falls in defeat when he opens the can and finds only the dry coffee inside. "This is not coffee," he objects.

"Give it here. I'll show you - it's not that hard." Steve demonstrates the operation of the espresso machine and Thor nods appreciatively as the steaming liquid starts dripping into the cup.

They eat in silence for a few minutes. Eventually Thor retrieves the espresso cup, which is comically tiny in his enormous hand. "The coffee is excellent," he proclaims.

"Good."

"No man, save me and my father, has ever been able to pick up Mjolnir until today," says Thor.

They stare at each other across the kitchen. "It's not that heavy," Steve says, around a mouthful of tuna and rice.

"It is not a matter of might, but of worth. Of valor." Thor folds his arms. "Many would think you the least of us, captain, but between my brother's planned invasion and the hammer you have doubly put that to the lie."

"Well, sure," said Steve, who isn't entirely sure how to process this. "If anyone's the least of us, it's Clint." They grin at each other and he feels himself suddenly turn red above the collar. "Um. If you're back, should you, are you going to give your friend a call? Jane? You can't leave a lady hanging forever, you know. Or they get to be ninety-year-old spinsters waiting forever for you to take them out on a date." _What the hell, Steve?_ He shoves a piece of fish the size of his fist into his mouth to shut himself up.

Thor's face has gone completely still, completely composed. "I visited Jane upon my return today," he says carefully. "She had heard tell of my brother's … actions, and that I had been to earth to put a stop to him. And that I had not sent word, nor come to her, after all her tireless searching …"

"She wasn't happy," Steve finished.

"Most displeased. And for excellent reason. It is not fit to ask a woman so worthy as her to wait upon the life I lead – she is no maiden atop a tower, to bestow a favor upon her chosen knight and wait demurely for him to find the time to seek her attention." Thor pulls a wry face. "She threw a lamp at me."

"My girlfriend fired a pistol at me," Steve offers. "Several shots. I mean, I was at least holding my shield at the time …"

Thor nods. "I am sorry for your lady. The youthful one that you left behind, and the elderly one that left _you_ behind with time's march."

"Yeah," Steve says. "I'm sorry too."

Thor sets the coffee down, walks across the kitchen and lays one huge hand on Steve's shoulder. It's warm even through the heavy fabric of his uniform. "I think," the Asgardian says, "that you have spent enough being sorry for what you did not do and could not change." He leans forward and oh god, Steve was really not expecting this and isn't sure he can stop this from happening or if he really wants to stop it in any case. He's never kissed anyone with a beard before. It's a lot like kissing someone without a beard, except with more stubble. _ What the _hell_, Steve? _Thor moves back and Steve immediately stammers, "But –Jane Foster is a woman?"

"Yes, and we have recently discussed that she and I are no more," says Thor, but after a moment his puzzled expression clears. "Ah. Must I limit myself to man, or woman, but not both? Why keep myself from the best of both worlds?" He grins, gathers up the rest of his lunch in one arm, and says over his shoulder as he leaves the kitchen, "Yes, the best of both worlds – a most excellent theme, I think you will come to agree."

Steve finishes his lunch, cleans up his own mess and Thor's, and grins foolishly to himself as he walks to the common room. Maybe he'll turn over a new leaf and follow doctor's orders today, to the spirit of the law as well as the letter.

###

Steve's room still smells like fresh paint. He takes the radio and the Dodgers pennant down to the local St. Vincent de Paul and blinks innocently when Tony finds out they're gone and pitches a minor fit about _irreplaceable antiques_. He does keep the bookshelf and everything on it, but adds to it – authors named Herbert and Mieville and Stephenson, and reading these is more challenging, but challenge has never yet been a reason for Steve to skive off doing something. He falls asleep most nights with an open paperback on his chest, and picks up again the next evening on the last passage he remembers.

He finds out he has an Army pension that he is old enough to collect on and then some, and uses the pittance to buy an alarm clock that is also a radio and maybe a reading lamp (he hasn't figured that one out yet). He gets a mobile telephone and insists on calling it a 'mobile telephone' instead of a 'cell phone' because it makes Tony and Clint roll their eyes and it's the little things, isn't it?

Tony takes note of Steve's slow-but-steady entry into the modern era and asks if he wants an iron suit of his own. "Just imagine it!" he says, already lost in his own daydreams (or perhaps in the glass of scotch he's had with lunch). "We could call you, um. Captain Iron. No, that's stupid. Plus it makes you sound like my boss, and that's not okay. Hmm … Iron Patriot!" Steve politely declines the offer, protesting that he's been just plain Captain America for seventy years and now doesn't seem like the time to stop. Clint opines that if Steve doesn't want an iron suit that he could probably do with one, and Tony informs him that if he can go a whole year without getting brainwashed by a god bent on world domination, he'll consider it.

It's Thor's idea to provide welcome company when Steve visits Peggy now and again. Sometimes she's there, and sometimes only her body is, but they go to the movies and the zoo and the park, and sometimes she remembers afterward, and that's enough for Steve. On their own, he and Thor go for walks in Central Park, when there's a quiet moment (there aren't a lot of quiet moments in Stark's household. Thor eats his first Coney dog and elephant ear (which he approves of, even if it didn't come from an actual elephant) and rides his first Ferris wheel (which he clearly finds disappointing and suggests it might be improved by at least tripling its speed and possibly adding something in the way of explosions). Sometimes other people stare at the two of them – they weren't brought up like Steve was, after all – but they can't help when they were born, and in any case no one is foolish enough to say anything about it.

It's a random night in September and Pepper is less hosting a team dinner than mediating it. Tony is quoting Arthur C. Clarke at Thor in an argument that the Asgardian has started about science versus magic; Clint is composing what he claims is an artistic homage to Bruce's alter ego out of the broccoli salad, and Natasha is ignoring them all with a determined look on her face. Steve picks up a fork to attack the cheese tart that has been set in front of him and realizes, with a shock, that he is, all told, a happy man and a fortunate one too: Tony and Pepper as dysfunctional father and tolerant mother, Natasha and Clint as squabbling siblings, Bruce as a longsuffering uncle, and Thor as the strange kid from the other side of the tracks who has been pulled into the orbit of this strange, wonderful family. And somewhere in the middle of that glorious mess, Steve fits, too. He retrieves his fork and takes a defensive posture over his plate just as Clint finishes eating _Hulk With an Onion Earring_ and asks if Steve is planning to finish that.

Things have changed. But people can change too, and that's as it should be. The fact of change isn't a game-ender – it's just part of life, a game whose rules and players are always in flux. And it seems, this time at least, change is good.


End file.
